


First Day

by AnObviousFact



Series: The Observer Effect [2]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Blair mostly handles things like a champ, Episode Tag, Even if he doesn't want to be, Friendship, Gen, Guys accidentally being cute, Hugging, Hurt/Comfort, It was a bad day for everyone, Jim is a good friend, Some Humor, Spoilers for s01e02 Siege, Sweet, Worried Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 19:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3301526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnObviousFact/pseuds/AnObviousFact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to the second episode of season 1: "Siege." Heavy references to events in the episode. </p><p>After the nightmare that was everything about Kincaid and the Sunrise Patriots, Jim wonders if Sandburg's first day as his official observer will be his last. And he wonders if that would be such a bad thing. Mostly he wonders how this flighty academic hasn't run screaming yet.</p><p>Sandburg, apparently, is wondering none of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was turning out to be…not “one of those days.” Actually, Jim would’ve killed for “one of those days” right then. There really wasn’t even any easy way to describe what kind of day he’d had. How do you describe a day in which a group of gun-toting crazies walk right into _your_ house, lock you on the outside, and threaten everything you care about? _Bad, Ellison. You’d describe that as **bad**. _

He’d grabbed a quick shower and a fresh t-shirt down in the locker room, but his arms still ached from hanging off that chopper; the bruises on his chest from the bullet he caught to the vest throbbed in time with his heartbeat and sent a painful twinge through him every time he moved the slightest bit. And every twinge made him angrier.

Garrett Kincaid and the Sunrise Patriots. Spoken in the right tone of voice, and Jim could’ve been convinced by the name that they were some kind of folk singing group or something. But every time he’d come into contact with this psychotic faction of military wannabe freaks, it was because they’d done something stupid and violent and worthless, and this just took the cake.

After they’d shipped Kincaid and the rest off to some cell that was way too good for any of them, Jim had had to stay and help sort through the chaos they left behind. Which was therapeutic in its own way, he supposed. Clean up the mess they’d left. Realize that they were really gone, that it was over. Make sure things were back to how they should be, that the streets were safe again. That the machine that was his city’s law enforcement was well-oiled and back in working order.

He’d seen Taggart off in an ambulance. The man seemed weary and in pain, but certainly in stable condition. Then there were a thousand things to be coordinated, righted, or mended. He’d coordinated his curly-haired observer into a chair by his desk and told him to stay put and out of the way, and for once the university student had nothing to say in return. Satisfied and unable to process much of anything beyond the fact that Sandburg was now safe, Jim set his attention on all the things that scrabbled for his attention—mostly that shower he’d desperately needed—ignoring the niggling headache that sat teasing the base of his skull from all the noise and disorder.

Until, after coming out of a conference call he’d taken in Simon’s office over hour later, he looked back at that chair. That now empty chair.

Nerve endings fired, forgotten adrenaline kicked back in, and all the unprocessed desperation from when the kid had been trapped in the building without him was right there like it never left. It was the same unprocessed desperation that had sent him leaping up onto a helicopter skid just a very short while ago.

“Hey.” He said to no one in particular, scanning around the room. Logically, he knew nothing was wrong. He knew nothing had happened. They were in the police station. The threat had been eliminated. Sandburg was fine. Didn’t lessen the edge in his voice even a little. “Brown. Hey.”

The detective was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone. He held up one finger and kept talking.

Patience was not an option right then. “No. Hey. Right now. Real quick. You know where Sandburg is?”

“Oh, hold on a sec,” Brown said into the phone before shooting Jim a look and covering the receiver. “What, man?”

“Where’d Sandburg go?” Jim had given him a ride in—was that this morning? Wow, that felt like days ago—so he knew the kid hadn’t gone home.

“That kid you brought in? Ah, Rafe took him to get his statement awhile ago. I think they were using one of the interrogation rooms. Little quieter, you know?”

He found himself inexplicably annoyed. “Why wouldn’t they wait and let me take his statement?”

Brown shrugged, the receiver still against his shoulder. “I don’t know. You were busy? What’s it matter?” Jim couldn’t imagine what about his face could have the man backtracking the way he did. “I mean, you could probably still catch ‘em, maybe. If you go now.”

“Yeah,” he said, considering. “Hey, thanks.”

“Not a problem; not a problem.” And Brown went back to his call.

Jim started out of the bull pen and down the hall toward the interrogation rooms. And nearly ran straight into Carolyn.

“Hey, Ellison,” she greeted with a bit of a crooked grin. She sounded tired. She had good reason to be.

“Plummer,” he nodded, allowing a smile to tweak his lips.

“What’s the rush? We’re post-disaster now, right? There’s plenty of time for calm, normal-paced walking from place to place now. Or didn’t you get the memo?”

“In other words, ‘No running in the halls’?”

She gave a short laugh. “Oh, boy. Is that what I sound like? I'm a hall monitor?”

“You? Nah…” He shook his head, scrunching his brow a bit, teasing her. It was good to see her. But he really didn’t want to be distracted too long from his mission. “I was actually just on my way through to interrogation. You doing all right?”

“I’m fine. On your way to see Sandburg?”

Oh, that’s right. Those two had met now. Up on the roof. Still, she was making some kind of expression he couldn’t interpret. Put him immediately the slightest bit on edge. “Right. Yeah, he’s giving his statement now.”

“Uh-huh. Well, good. Sooo…” she said wisely, “your cousin’s kid?”

Ah. Yeah, that was bound to come back to bite him, he supposed. “Well…you know. Kind of. It’s a…It’s more of a, um, thing through marriage, you know, twice removed and all that. On my mother’s side. We’re barely…barely related. Like just…you know, barely.” Everybody was related if you went back far enough, right?

“Right.” She clearly wasn’t buying it. “And now he’s your partner?”

“Sort of. He’s…observing. For awhile.”

“Mmhm.” She looked at him a long time. Several seconds past the point of awkward. Her gaze was narrowed, penetrating. Suspicious. And then she said, in an entirely chastising voice, “You should be aware that your new partner is the third most adorable thing on the planet.”

Of all the things he would’ve expected. He didn’t even… “I... _What_?”

“You heard me. Number three on the universal list of adorable things. Right after kittens and small, chubby-faced young children who speak with a faint lisp.”

“Wha…?” Jim sighed and rubbed his eyes. Third most…? “What about…puppies?” Why would he even ask that? Why would _that_ be the question he asked? He was losing his mind.

“Mmmm…nope.” She hardly even considered it. “He’s cuter. He’s cuter than _puppies_.” And she looked at Jim as though it were somehow all his fault.

“I’m…sorry?” He meant it in the sense that he didn’t understand. But after he’d said it, it really felt like an apology. “Carolyn, have you taken pain medication?”

She shook her head. “There should be a law,” she said regretfully. And then she shared with him the events of her first experience with one Blair Sandburg. In her voice was the bewilderment he was starting to associate with being around Sandburg in general.

**_Carolyn was just getting to the point where the adrenaline was draining to her fingers, leaving her hands trembling as the last bit of pent-up stress ebbed out of her. It was over, and they were okay. Jim was okay. The terrorists were caught. And just at that moment, as she was catching her breath, a young, disheveled looking figure stepped right up in her space, holding out his bound wrists to her, nearly touching her lapel. He looked up at her with these big blue eyes, and said all at once, “Hi. Would you mind?”_ **

**_She was struck, rather suddenly, with a memory of her four-year-old nephew looking up at her much the same, presenting one foot with its conspicuously untied Batman sneaker. It was such an odd parallel, she didn’t move for a moment and could only stand there gawking at him._ **

**_He stared back for awhile, fidgeting and bouncing on his toes a bit, looking awkward. “Um.” He reached up and bumped her shoulder lightly. “Are you okay?”_ **

**_Carolyn shook herself. “Yes. Fine. Fine. I’m sorry. Yes, of course. Let me help you.”_ **

**_His smile was bright and immediate. “Thanks. Oh!” He dug in his pocket, which was quite a chore the way his hands were taped up. “I have a pocket knife.” Another second and he managed to fish it out. “Here.”_ **

**_“Great.” She took the knife from him and made short work of the tape keeping his wrists together. The trembling had mostly left her hands. It hadn’t completely left his even as he rubbed his wrists to get the blood flowing again and get rid of leftover adhesive that stuck to his skin. “You doing okay?” she asked._ **

**_“Yep. I’m good. Great, actually. Just, um…” he made a face and nodded a bit at the helicopter and at everything. “This was weird. This was a little weird for me. But good. Good now. So you’re Carolyn, right? Jim’s ex-wife?”_ **

**_The directness surprised her a little. She’d like to have been annoyed. She felt like under any other set of circumstances, she would’ve been. But for whatever reason, this scruffy little figure got a reprieve. “Yes, Carolyn Plummer. And you’re Blair Sandburg. Jim’s new ride-along.”_ **

**_He rolled his eyes at the title. “Yep. Although I believe the newly-approved term is ‘observer.’”Crazy wild curls blew all around his face, adding to his tousled appearance. He had on an oversized, tattered tan corduroy coat, the sleeves of which went down nearly to his fingertips. He was shaking a little, and even though his expression stayed pleasant and open, he wrapped his arms around himself like he was cold._ **

**_“Rough first day,” she said with real sympathy._ **

**_“I know! Man. Tomorrow’s going to feel…downright boring, am I right?” And he added, with slight desperation, “Please say I’m right.”_ **

**_"Oh, we live for dull moments around here." She grinned at him through her weariness. “You’re taking this whole thing rather in stride.”_ **

**_“Oh.” He blinked. “Well, thanks.” She hadn’t even necessarily meant it as a compliment, just an observation. But his genuine surprise made her want to compliment him again._ **

**_“Must be why Jim’s letting you work with him. You seem to keep a level head.”_ **

**_He shrugged his eyebrows and brushed some curls out of his face. “Must be.” Like he didn’t think that was it at all._ **

**_“Well, it has to be something. I have to say, I never thought he’d let himself get partnered up again. Even temporarily.” She took in the entire picture he presented. A couple inches shorter than she was. Layers of worn out clothes. Too-long hair. Earrings. Innocent blue eyes. A quick-to-smile, fast-talking mouth. A positive, in-your-face demeanor with sudden sprinkles of awkward shyness. If she had decided to scour the world to find the exact opposite of Jim Ellison… “You must be something special.”_ **

**_“I have joie de vivre,” he volunteered cheerfully._ **

**_“Is that right?” And even if she’d been trying not to grin, she wouldn’t have stood a chance._ **

**_“Mmhm.” He nodded simply. “It’s been documented.” A quick flash of a smile, and he looked over to where Jim stood with Simon. “Well, thanks for…” He held up his freed wrists and then pointed over his shoulder at the two men. “I’m gonna go over there now. Nice to meet you, Carolyn. Um, Ms. Plummer? Carolyn?”_ **

**_“Carolyn,” she confirmed a first-name basis._ **

**_“Blair.” He shook her hand, and his look went from little boy to charming young man quick as a wink. Oh, he was destined to be a heartbreaker. Then he was darting over to Jim, waiting impatiently for the detective to finish talking with Simon. Then as she watched, the two had a brief discussion, both of them rubbing their abused wrists as they talked._ **

**_Standing so close, everything that was so different about them was immediately apparent. Then Jim patted the kid’s face softly with both hands, intending to walk away when Sandburg stopped him with hands on his vest and said something else. She watched as Jimmy’s exhausted face stretched into a wide smile, the blue eyes laughing as he walked away, trying unsuccessfully to hide his chuckling behind his hand. And that young guy—the observer—looked almost comically exasperated as he skipped along behind the detective, trying to catch up, chattering all the way._ **

**_Carolyn raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t sure how long this ride along thing would last. Knowing Jim like she did, she gave it a week. Tops. But she fully expected it would be an interesting week._ **

Jim felt the tired smile that had taken up residence on his face at some point while listening to Carolyn’s brief Sandburg tale. “‘Joie de vivre,’” he said, nodding. “That’s French for…‘really loud mouth,’ right?”

“Something like that. All I’m saying is: thanks a lot. Now that you’ve got one of…whatever we’re calling him, it’s only a matter of time before all the other teams in your department want one, too.”

“Seems like that would lead to a supply and demand issue. Want me to put your name on the waiting list?”

“Make sure it’s spelled correctly.” She looked at him straight in the eye, and her joking tone faded into the other one. Curiously enough, it was a warning, mild though it was. “Be careful with him.”

He tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not a cop. Make sure you’re fair to him. You can’t play your normal Jim Ellison Lone Ranger part with him in the passenger seat. You attract a lot of bullets sometimes, detective. And if you’re going to have some civilian college student riding with you, you need to make very sure you adjust accordingly.”

The sudden flash of irritation certainly brought back memories. “What are you saying; that I can’t do my job while he’s observing?”

“I’m saying that _while_ you do your job, don’t _forget_ he’s observing. The bad guys don’t usually check for credentials before they start firing. Or hauling people onto helicopters. You may have noticed.”

So she thought what? That this was going to be a routine? That he would just leave the kid in harm’s way whenever it suited him? “Hey, I didn't leave him with Kincaid. I left him in the middle of the Cascade PD, surrounded by cops. While we went out to _lunch._ And I got him back, didn’t I?” He distinctly remembered _jumping onto a chopper_. Not that he was looking to get a parade, but didn’t that prove something? Shouldn’t that reassure everybody that he could keep the kid safe? It should, right? It should.

Her voice remained neutral. “You did. You sure did, Jimmy. I’m just saying. Be careful. Not just for his sake, either.”

“Who else…?” He trailed off at her pointed eyebrow. Sometimes this woman knew him far too well. She’d never known him when he was teamed with Jack. But she’d seen the aftershocks of his former partner’s disappearance. And before that when Delgado, his very first partner, got shot. That had messed him up, too. So she knew the damage that had been done, had seen it in the way he’d flatly refused to work with anyone else. Until now. Until Sandburg. Until he’d had no choice. And now she worried what would happen to him if he lost the kid on his watch, too.

_He could’ve died today._ On some logical, academic type level, he’d known that. It was some of what fueled his rage at Kincaid—that his partner was up there under threat, being held hostage. But adrenaline did funny things, made things seem less…real sometimes. The reality was, though, that it would’ve been a real easy thing for Blair Sandburg to be one of the ones that didn’t make it out of this one. Six people had died. Six people who had gone into work like it was any other day had swiftly and without warning or mercy been murdered. It rankled him. Even more so the possibility that there could so easily have been a seventh. And that was something he didn’t want to…think about. Blair was Jim’s responsibility. Jim had even said as much to Simon just that morning. What _would_ it do to him if the kid died on his watch?

Jim shook his head. Suddenly. Almost violently. Because that line of thinking wouldn’t do anyone any good. Right?

“Yeah, well. Look, I gotta go. You all right? You doing all right?” Had he asked her that already?

“I’m fine. Just about to head home. You should get out of here soon, too. You look beat.”

“Yeah,” he answered absently and was already moving past her. “I’ll do that. Goodnight, Carolyn.”

He heard her answering “’Night,” behind him, and he focused on taking regular, deep breaths. He was tired all of a sudden. He was tired before, but…he was _tired_ now. All he wanted was to go grab the kid, see him safely to that vagrant’s paradise he called home, and then go collapse back at the loft and sleep for a day or two or twenty. Mostly he wanted to stop _thinking._

“Hey, Ellison.” Rafe was coming around the corner, carrying a video camera in one hand, tripod in the other. Jim frowned at him. If Rafe was here, where the heck was Sandburg? “Hold up a second.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be taking Sandburg’s…?”

“Yeah. He finished up a little while ago.” The man was smiling broadly, looking at Jim a little bewildered—the now-familiar hallmark. “I have to know: that guy really your partner now?”

Jim didn’t bother answering. “Where’s he at?”

“I don’t know. We got done…maybe half an hour ago. Hey, he tell you what happened to him yet?”

“What…” Jim paused and worked his jaw a second. “What happened to him?”

“Oh, boy.” Rafe rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and it was somewhere between sympathy and reluctant humor. “Kid had quite the adventure. Rhonda and all the other witness reports so far back up his statements. He seemed okay about everything, but wow. I’d lay down odds right now that he’s not coming back here again. And it is _not_ like I can blame him.”

Something cold settled in his stomach. “You got his statement on video?”

“Yeah. Chief’s idea. He wants detailed records on everything that went down today. We’re going to be picking apart our security protocols around here for awhile I’m guessing. And I don’t think anyone here will mind at all.”           

“No doubt. Is the tape in there?” He tapped the gray, plastic camera.

“Hm? You mean Sandburg’s report?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, yeah. You wanna take a look?”

“You mind?”

“By all means.” He held it out. “I gotta make some rounds myself. Don’t leave without getting this back to me. I’m supposed to get the tape to the higher ups before my shift ends.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Jim took the camera. A newer one from the looks of it. Small. Used the little mini cassette tapes. He studied it as he walked back toward Major Crimes. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure why he wanted to know what Blair had said so badly, but… _That’s a lie. You know why._ Because he needed to know, before he found the young anthropologist, what that kid was going to say to him.

_I’d lay down odds right now that he’s not coming back here again._

Why did that bother him so much? That Sandburg would say to him—wisely—that he hadn’t signed up for all this. That it was too much to ask, too dangerous, too deadly. That this whole thing was over even before it began.

It wasn’t even like Blair would stop helping him outside of work. Jim couldn’t believe that would be the case. The kid was practically giddy over the whole Sentinel thing. Called Jim his holy grail. Wasn’t like Sandburg would completely walk away. Just that he wouldn’t be there to help out in the field. And that was fine. That was good even. Safer. Simpler. Would definitely put all Carolyn’s unfounded fears to rest. And they were only _her_ fears. So why in the world did the prospect of one goofy, unpredictable civilian not being around scare him so much? This whole thing was _temporary_ anyway. By design.

He walked through the bull pen to Simon’s office, wanting to get away from the noise, figuring his captain wouldn’t mind if Jim borrowed the room while the man was away. He sat at the conference table facing the windows, back to the door. His body melted into the hard chair a little, shoulders slumping, and it seemed like it had been a long time since he’d been sitting down. He flipped open the little monitor on the side of the camera and turned it on, fast forwarding the tape past a few haunted-looking familiar and unfamiliar faces until the object of his search walked timidly into frame. Then he hit play.

Blair looked a little nervous, his kid-in-the-principal’s-office eyes darting around as he sat down at the table, finally settling somewhere to the left of the camera where Rafe presumably sat. _“So, um. This is where the bad guys, sit.”_ He patted the arm rests of his chair lightly and glanced over at the one-way mirror to his left with a small grin. _“Is there anybody on the other side of the glass listening in?”_

_“Nope.”_ Rafe’s voice, sounding amused. _“Or at least…not that I know of. Just relax; we’ll keep this simple. We just need your statement for the record. Why don’t we start off with your name?”_

_“Blair Sandburg. I’m an anthropology graduate student at Rainier University.”_ He looked right at the camera then, settling into his seat a little bit, getting comfy, the already-familiar spark of defiant humor lighting his eyes. _“And, ahem… Let the record show that I am currently the **partner** of Detective Jim Ellison. Major Crimes.” _ Jim couldn’t help the slight smirk. He rolled his eyes.

_“Partner, huh?”_ Rafe asked, and his skepticism was friendly enough.

Sandburg found a pencil on the desk and started fiddling with it. Kid really just could not keep still. _“Yeah. Observer status, man. Apparently when my paperwork goes through I’ll get a badge. Not like a **badge** badge. But, uh, you know. It’ll probably be laminated.”_

_“I see. All right, Mr. Sandburg. Why don’t you tell me what happened when you came in today? Just start from wherever you feel comfortable.”_

There was a slight pause. Just a tiny thing where he glanced from Rafe to the camera, licked his lips, and swallowed. A single second of apprehension that made Jim’s exhausted body sit up straighter in the chair, put his nerves that much more on edge. Because Jim didn’t _know_ what had happened to him in the time they were separated, but now he knew it was bad enough that there was _fear_ just in the retelling. Why hadn’t he talked to Sandburg the moment he got him off that chopper? Why hadn’t he made sure he was all right? Why hadn’t he at least made it a point to find out what he’d been through?

Then Blair was chattering about coming in to the precinct with Jim and getting the paperwork started with Vera and the awkward and unfortunate situation with having to provide a urine sample. Kid even made it entertaining. Like he always did. Light and fun, and he even elicited a chuckle from Rafe a time or two. Not that that was particularly hard to do.

“Jim?”

Jim looked up and hit pause, startled by the familiar deep voice. “Simon? What are you doing here, sir? I thought you’d gone home with Darryl.”

The captain stood in the doorway, looking tired and determined. “I did. He’s with his mom now.”

“How’s he doing?”

“You know. He’s been through a trauma. He’s shaken up pretty bad, but he’s handling it…surprisingly well, actually, all things considered. Still, I’ll be back there tonight. If he doesn’t have nightmares over this I’d be very surprised.”

It went without saying. Jim expected they’d all have nightmares over this one. “He’s a strong kid.”

“He is. So what are you doing in my office, detective?”

Jim held up the camera, briefly considered if there was any way to get out of answering, and said, like it was perfectly reasonable, “Sandburg gave his statement already with Rafe. I was just going through it.”

The captain’s eyebrows rose. “Can’t you just ask the kid about it later? You don’t have better things you could be doing?”

Jim didn’t answer that one. Because sure, there were a thousand other things he _could_ be doing. But right then he didn’t think he could call any of them _better_. And he really didn’t know any way to say that out loud.

Simon looked at him. And apparently saw something in his expression. He pulled out a chair and sat down next to him, scooting close enough to see the small monitor. “Go. Hit play. I want to hear this, too.” At Jim’s look, he shrugged. “If the kid’s gonna be on our team, I figure it’s best I get to know how he handles himself in a crisis.”

Jim nodded at that, shrugging off his surprise, and hit the play button. “He’s just getting started.”

Onscreen, Sandburg sat in his seat, and Jim could hear a faint tapping, and he realized it was the kid’s shoe beating out a nervous rhythm under the table. _“Um. So I was in the bathroom, just failing at providing a urine sample, when I heard a gunshot. It was…really loud. I looked out the door. I saw Joel—um, Captain Taggart. I’d met him before. Nice guy. But um, he’d been shot in the leg. It looked…really painful. So I saw him and Captain Banks’s son and some others getting pushed along by Kincaid—although I had no idea who Kincaid was at the time. I just saw a bunch of guys all with guns.”_

_“So then what happened?”_

As Jim watched, Blair pressed his lips together, keeping his eyes down on the table. He rubbed the eraser end of the pencil on the table for a moment. _“I hid,”_ he said quietly. Like an admission of guilt. _“In one of the stalls.”_

What was that? Wait, what was that? Was the kid _ashamed_ that he was an unarmed civilian all alone with no backup or resources in a building full of dangerous terrorists? For Pete’s sake, if Sandburg _hadn’t_ been smart enough to keep his head down, Jim would’ve throttled him. _What? You think we expected you to storm the place and take back the building with your bare hands? Rambo couldn’t do that! And Rambo is pretend!_

_“That was a smart move.”_

Sandburg looked up in surprise at Rafe’s words. He looked suspiciously at him, like he wasn’t sure whether he was only being placated.

_“You kept your head in a situation that you had no way of understanding, and you stayed low instead of going off and getting yourself killed. That’s a very smart move any way you look at it.”_ Jim was all at once grateful to Rafe for saying what needed to be said and irritated at himself for not being the one to say it. And annoyed at Sandburg for making it necessary to say at all.

The blue eyes blinked. _“Oh.”_

“ _So then what? They eventually found you, I guess.”_

_“Well, kind of. A guy came in. But I sort of kicked the stall door at him, and it knocked him in the head pretty good.”_ Jim felt his eyebrows shoot up to the top of his head at that. Really _?_ _“He was out cold, and the hallway was empty, so I went out and made it to the break room. I stayed there awhile, hiding behind the snack machine in there, you know? Did some soul-searching. Did some praying. It was a pretty pivotal time in my life. **As a person** , you know?” _He gave one of those funny, defusing grins he did.

Rafe chuckled. _“Okay, okay. Wow. All right, then what?”_

_“Um, well I was there awhile. And then this guy came in and was trying to get something from the snack machine, but I guess he didn’t have the right coinage. Said something about ‘exact change,’ and then he just freaked right out, man. Like went nuts. Shot the thing up, and I was right behind it, you know, so I was just…yelling. Because I thought I was gonna get **shot**. Obviously. And so he was freaking out, and I was also freaking out, and somehow…I guess I_ _shoved it just right; I’m not really sure, but the whole snack machine fell over on the guy, and he was down for the count.”_

Really? Because _really?_

_“So I ran out of there. Oh.”_ Sandburg looked guilty again. He reached uncomfortably into his pocket and pulled out a yellow bag of peanut M &Ms. _“I did go back and take these. From the snack machine. Well, from the floor in front of the snack machine where the snack machine was broken. I didn’t pay for them or anything.”_ He rubbed his head fretfully. _“I don’t know why I did that. I don’t even eat a lot of candy; that stuff is terrible for you. I think there were just some adrenaline things going on, and…anyway, you can have ‘em.”_

He slid them nervously across the table and held up his hands in surrender as his mouth kept running _. “You can take them right back, man. I wasn’t trying to steal them, I just…I don’t know; there was just this broken snack machine and peanut M &Ms lying abandoned, and I was right there, and a guy with a gun knocked out there on the ground, and I was thinking like… **survival** , man, and needing calories and…”_

_“Whoa, whoa. It’s okay.”_ Rafe cut the babbling young man off, and it was clear from his voice that he was holding back helpless laughter at the grad student’s dilemma. The candy was pushed back across the table to Blair. _“You just keep those, okay? You earned them. Call them a gift from the department.”_

Blair took a deep breath. _“Okay,”_ he nodded. _“Cool. Okay.”_

_“Now, you okay? You need a drink of water or something?”_

The kid shook his head, catching his breath a bit. _“No, I’m good. I’m good, man. Thanks.”_ The candy went back in his coat pocket.

_“Okay. Well, let’s keep going. What happened after the break room?”_

_“Well, it was harder to be in the halls after that so I stuck to the stairwell for a little bit, but that didn’t last long. Too much foot traffic. Then there was that…explosion. It was… **loud**. Just rocked the place. I had no idea. I mean, you hear explosions in the movies and stuff all the time, so you think you’d know what to expect, but it is…not the same. They blew up the building across the street. At the time I didn’t know **what** happened. _

_“I left the stairwell, trying to figure out what it was, trying not to totally freak out. I guess they were looking for me after their two guys were missing. Or maybe they found ‘em; I don’t know. It just seemed like they were everywhere. So I had to duck into this office upstairs. I don’t know whose office it was, but there was this, um…”_ he gestured vaguely, _“One of those platform things that window washers use? A little ways below the window on the next floor down. There_ _wasn’t any other way out of the room that I could think of, and the guys were going through all the offices. So I broke the window.”_

He winced like he thought he’d be in trouble again. But then he scowled. _“Those things are stupid hard to break by the way, man. Anyway, I figured I could ride that thing down to street level, and then I could find Jim. You know, Detective Ellison? I knew he had to be close because no way could all this go on and him not be trying to fix it. I figured he was outside the building. He went out to lunch with Carolyn—that’s his ex-wife; she works in forensics—you probably already know that. I think it’s great they still go out to lunch together, personally. I met her today; she seemed…"_  He shook his head. _"That’s not important. So anyway I thought if I could just get to him, to Jim, I could tell him what I knew about the guys inside, and he’d know what to do.”_

There was so much blind confidence there it was almost overwhelming. Jim glanced over at Simon just in time to catch the other man’s small, amused smile. It brought their conversation from that morning suddenly to mind, back when they were trying to pitch the idea of Sandburg tagging along to a reluctant Simon.

**_“And you’re requesting full access credentials to observe Detective Ellison on the job?”_** the man had asked.

And Sandburg, with all the clueless hero worship of a kid brother had said, **_“Well, yeah. He is the best on the force, isn’t he?”_ ** Jim had figured at the time it was all part of the act. It _was_ part of the act wasn’t it?

Jim snapped back to the tape as Rafe’s voice came on again, _“But you never made it out.”_

_“Nope. Well, I made it out onto the platform. But I guess the window breaking thing alerted the guys on the roof. I didn’t think about whether there’d be a guy up there. Didn't even consider it. But they had guns and were shooting. And I don’t know if it was an accident, but the platform started falling. I’m not sure how far; I was still pretty high up I think. Somebody stopped it though, but when they did, there were guys at the window pointing guns at me, and I was pretty well **caught**.”_

_“So they were firing at you from the roof?”_

Blair nodded, and his face remained neutral but looked a little paler to Jim’s eyes, fingers which had abandoned the pencil now tapping a rhythm onto the tabletop. He tried to imagine that kid dangling out on a suspended platform, ultimately helpless, with bullets falling all around him. He did not like the image.

Sandburg swallowed with some difficulty, but managed to somehow make his voice sound pretty close to normal. _“They missed, though.”_ And he was very much reassuring himself, but the reassurance might as well have been meant for Jim’s ears.

_“Yes, they did,”_ Rafe acknowledged warmly. _“Okay, so then there were members of the Sunrise Patriots who pulled you back into the building; is that right?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Did they hit you?”_

Rafe was cataloging their crimes. Had to know if there was another count of physical assault to add to the list. It made sense. And yet, the short, direct question with its professional nature and still with sympathy around the edges, hit Jim right between the eyes. Because why was _Rafe_ asking this question? Why hadn’t _Jim_ asked that question the moment he’d gotten him off that helicopter? He knew as well as anybody that just because there weren’t bruises on the kid’s _face_ didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten beat on. But surely it didn’t matter because surely the answer was no, because _surely_ Sandburg would’ve told him if he had!

Blair blinked his eyes a couple of times before sitting up a little straighter. He shrugged a shoulder and wasn’t looking at anyone or anything when he said, _“A little bit. Not much.”_ Something that felt a lot like loathing dropped from Jim’s throat to his stomach as he swallowed. _“I think they didn’t want to do a whole lot to me before they took me to their leader or whatever. Mostly they were just mad about what happened to their guys and because I wasted so much of their time. And also…I’m a bit of a nervous talker. Bad habit I guess. Been trying to work on that. They were gracious enough to give me a few…pointers.”_ He gave a short, nervous little piece of a laugh.

There was a creaking of plastic, and Jim wouldn’t have noticed if there hadn’t been a large hand that had come to rest on his forearm. He realized he was squeezing the camera much too hard, and he felt the muscle in his jaw twitch. He was just so unbelievably _angry_.

“Take it easy,” Simon murmured beside him before removing his hand. “It’s over.”

It was. Yet it still took some effort to relax his grip on the camera somewhat.

Onscreen, Sandburg fidgeted as Rafe asked him, _“Did you let the paramedics check you out?”_

_“I’m fine. It really wasn’t anything. Just a couple bruises.”_ And he sped on before anyone could call him out. _“After that I met Kincaid. He thought I was a mole. Some hotshot sent in from the outside to take them down one by one or something.”_ A sudden sweet smile lit his face. _“So basically he thought I was Jim and the Captain.”_ Then the smile was gone. _“Anyway, he said he was going to execute me.”_

_“Did you believe him?”_

_“Oh, yeah,”_ he breathed. And the simple truth of it played in those blue eyes that were suddenly a million miles away, probably seeing all the things he’d been so certain of, and for those seconds, Jim found he couldn’t breathe.

Rafe gave him a moment and then moved on, his voice quieter. _“What did you think of Garrett Kincaid when you first met him?”_ And just like that, the horrible spell was broken.

_“Um…that he was shorter than I expected?”_

_“Right?”_ Rafe chuckled, and the sound seemed to relax Blair a little. _“Okay, what else?”_

_“He was, um…he was creepy.”_ There was a sudden blank, uncomfortable sort of expression, and he leaned back a little in his chair before he shook his head past it and went on, more clinically. _“He was definitely the guy in charge. The other guys wouldn’t do anything he didn’t tell them to do. Except that snack machine guy, maybe. He was just…nuts. Kincaid was pretty unhinged himself. Paranoid. **Major** control issues. And he took everything that happened really personally. Like me being there was about deliberately undermining his authority or something. Totally **classically** narcissistic. He thought he was brilliant. Like there was no way he was gonna fail. Like…like victory was **owed** to him.”_ He tapped his lip as his brain went into what Jim recognized as analysis mode.

_“Why do you think he didn’t kill you?”_

Jim shook his head. “Come on, Rafe.” _Go easy on him._

But the question didn’t seem to bother Sandburg too much. _“Because I let him think I was the hotshot he thought I was. I told him I was a lieutenant with the Narcotics Division and would be a valuable hostage.”_

“Smart kid,” Simon mumbled.

_“He probably still would’ve killed me, but Captain Taggart backed me up. He was over by one of the desks with a bullet in his leg, still taking care of that young kid—Captain Banks’s son—and still he backed me up. Kincaid even shot a gun really close right over his head, but he backed me up.”_ He suddenly looked up at where Rafe was, and his eyes were troubled and vulnerable. _“He’ll be okay, right? Joel I mean.”_

_“Last I heard, everything was looking fine,”_ Rafe said, and his tone was comforting. Jim appreciated that.

_“Good,”_ Blaire nodded and flicked the pencil a little too hard, sending it skittering off the table. _“Oops.”_ He glanced apologetically at Rafe and then plowed ahead. _“After that, Kincaid got his helicopter. He took me with him out of the bull pen. He said I was ‘one of the lucky ones,’ and I knew they were going to…just…kill everybody.”_ He paused, and there was another glimpse of the fear and horror. _“They didn’t, though,”_ he rushed on _. “Because Jim and Captain Banks, I heard after. I wasn’t there for any of that, though. You’ll have to ask the others. So…Kincaid took me up to the roof, and there was this yellow chopper. I was yelling at him that I wasn’t a cop. Telling the truth, you know? Because it was becoming really apparent that I was **not** gonna end up one of the lucky ones. But he wasn’t listening by then._

_“Anyway, then we were flying around, and then there’s **Jim** …doing his **Die Hard** thing. Man, that guy…I mean, seriously. Kincaid freaked out and opened the door, trying to shoot Jim off. We were already a little sideways, so it didn’t take much to nudge him out. Which I feel kinda bad about now because I’m pretty sure that made everything a whole lot harder on Jim. He was just like, hanging off the skid while they were trying to shake him off, and then **Kincaid** goes out and ends up hanging off of **him**. It’s crazy, man! But then the chopper pilot wasn’t going to turn around and land because, obviously, he didn’t want to get arrested. But there was a flare gun in a case on the floor, so after Jim—and Kincaid actually—yelled up to turn back, I got the pilot to agree.”_

_“You threatened the pilot with a flare gun?”_

_“It wasn’t even loaded,”_ he hedged. _“I just pointed it at him and shouted a bunch of nonsense and made crazy eyes.”_ He tilted his head back and gave a demonstration of his crazy eyes.

Jim distinctly remembered hearing the words, **_“I don’t think so, punk! I flew Apaches in Desert Storm! Now turn it around! Now!”_** He leaned closer to Simon. “He was pretty convincing.”

“How do you know? Weren’t you outside the…?” Simon paused. “Oh right. Your Superman senses. Yeah, that’s still a conversation for another day.”

“I’m with you there, sir.”

Rafe was still laughing at Blair’s crazy eyes. _“All right. So what happened after that?”_

Sandburg shrugged. _“Nothing. We flew back in. Kincaid and everybody got arrested. Um, the day was saved? And now that guy is going to prison for a very, very long time. Right?”_

_“Right.”_

_“Good. So that’s it. Are we done?”_

_“We’re done. Thank you. If we need anything else, we’ll call you.”_

Blair shot out of his seat and was already out of frame before he called back, _“Cool, man, thanks.”_ And the sound of a door closing. There was some shuffling around and chuckling before Rafe got to the camera and switched it off. Jim pressed stop as the tape cut to the next interview.

“Well,” Simon rumbled after a moment, leaning back in his chair. “Your observer had quite the day.”

“Mm,” he acknowledged quietly as he sat unmoving. “If he still wants to be my observer.”

The captain looked sideways at him, one eyebrow raised.

Jim sat back, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He hasn’t even gotten his paperwork turned in, and already he’s been hunted, shot at, dropped, tied up, knocked around, threatened, and taken hostage. And furthermore…I may have let him think this was just a typical Wednesday.”

Simon grinned briefly. “He did manage to take out two of their guys with a bathroom door and a vending machine. Not to mention shoving the leader of a terrorist organization out of a helicopter. Which he then held up with a flare gun.”

What could he even call that? Luck? Guts? A really disconcerting amount of both? “Yes he did. Yes. He. Did.”

Simon leaned back, watching him carefully. Still reading him. Had he become an easy read all of a sudden? Must be, because the next words out of the captain’s mouth basically hit the nail on the head. “You think he’s gonna back out now?”

“You think he won’t?”

Simon countered easily, “You see his face when I told those officers he was on our team?”

Jim had seen it. And he’d heard it. Relief and joy and almost incoherent babbling.

He glanced over to see Simon studying him. “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” the man asked point blank.

“Guess I am.” He tried to sound neutral on the subject. Seemed like a failed attempt.

“What do you need him for?” Banks just asked straight out.

Jim thought about that. It was a fair question. It took him a moment to word his answer. “You said I was awesome today. All the things I could see and hear and smell.”

“Yeah, so?”

“ _That’s_ what I need him for.” He looked at Simon looking at him and sighed. “If this had happened two weeks ago… If Kincaid had moved his timetable up _two weeks_ , I would’ve been useless to you. I never would’ve made it through that sewer. No matter how many lives were depending on it, that smell would’ve wiped me out. I wouldn’t have been able to focus my hearing. Those explosions…those would’ve torn me apart. I might’ve ended up ‘zoning out,’ practically catatonic because _that’s_ a weird part of this whole deal that’s happened before. None of it would’ve worked, Simon. Today would’ve just been me, on my knees, with a knife running through my brain from all the sensory overload while Kincaid took our city and killed our people.” There was a thread that ran through his very core that absolutely hated even the _thought_ of that happening. Interestingly, it was the same thread that raged against the thought of anything happening to the anthropologist he’d only known for a week and a half.

Simon regarded him thoughtfully for a long time. “Sandburg still here?” he asked, his tone neutral.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“All right, well?” he pointed at the door. “Go get him. And get out of here.”

“Sir, there’s still…”

“Tomorrow. Today’s been taken care of, Jim.” His voice sounded in that rare, understanding tone. “Go get your friend. Get some rest. There’s still _tomorrow_.”

Jim paused a long moment before nodding his head. “Thank you, sir.” He stood and set the camera on the table. “You want to make sure this gets back to Rafe?”

“Right. Because I needed one more thing to do,” he groused, but waved Jim out all the while. “Will do. Goodnight, Detective.”

“Night, sir.” When Jim got out to the bull pen, his mission to find one missing grad student resumed, he found the chair he’d left Sandburg in still conspicuously vacant. “All right, Chief. Where are you?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

He checked the bathroom. Found it difficult to be in there without imagining an unconscious gunman on the floor and his young partner alone and out of his depths. Checked the break room. The snack machine was even still smashed, though it had been stood up and someone had swept up the glass. Still no Sandburg. But there were plenty of bullet holes to be found in the wrecked machine.

Jim went down to the garage and checked his truck to see if the kid had gone down there to wait for him. No dice. By then, Jim was getting nervous. He was getting nervous, and he was counting. He’d made it to eight. Eight separate times he knew of that Blair Sandburg could’ve died in the past few hours.

He could’ve died when the Sunrise Patriots stormed the building. He could’ve died when the man came into the bathroom. He could’ve died in the break room. He could’ve died after being caught in one of the hallways. He could’ve died on that window-washer’s platform. He could’ve died the moment Kincaid’s men grabbed him. He could’ve died execution style at Kincaid’s hand in the bullpen. He could’ve died— _would’ve_  died—as soon as Kincaid was free and clear on that chopper. If Jim had been  _one_   _minute_   _later_ …

Jim’s pace had quickened itself as he went back to the elevator and rode back up to Major Crimes. If  _Jim_  had been doing the math, dwelling on all the might-have-beens, what must Sandburg be going through? The kid was an academic for heaven’s sake. Not your average academic, maybe, but an academic nonetheless. He wasn’t trained to handle the kind of trauma he’d just been through.

_He could be holed up somewhere right now having a freaking panic attack, going into shock, and **I can’t find him.**_

Sandburg had just gone through all the worst kinds of stress, and if he  _didn’t_  end up having some kind of reaction, that would be unsettling all by itself. Where the heck  _was_  he?

_Okay, think, Ellison. Where else would the kid even go?_  Blair didn’t know the building well. Hadn’t spent much time there. So where…?

As he got off the elevator, he headed, almost on autopilot, for the bull pen. But he stopped. He peered through the windows of the Personnel Office across the hall. Where the two of them had been joking around only a few hours ago. The lights in there were off, making the glass throw a reflection of the lit hall it faced. It seemed empty. Still, Jim opened the door, standing under the doorframe, and tilted his head tentatively to the side. Listening.

He filtered past the frantic pace of the rest of the building and focused only on the room. Slow, even breaths met his ears, and just beneath that, a steady heartbeat. Jim blinked, letting the sound pull him further into the room and allowing the door to shut behind him, his eyes looking around in the dimness. He approached the tall, red-painted desk, the life signs becoming more apparent the closer he got. He peered over the top of the desk, sweeping the floor behind it. Nothing. He frowned. And even though he  _knew_  someone was there, he hesitated. Because  _surely not._

Jim moved quietly around behind the desk and leaned down slightly to look underneath it. And just like that, some of his previous tension melted away, and he heaved a quiet sigh that was almost a chuckle.

Blair sat there, legs pulled up close to his chest, his arms resting lightly on top of his knees. He’d squeezed himself into the corner, head resting against the wooden side of the desk. And he was very much entirely asleep.

“Well,” Jim said softly, a smile riding the very edge of his mouth. “That can’t be comfortable.” It didn’t look comfortable. Not at all. But somehow it did look peaceful, and somehow the anonymous worry that had been chewing on Jim’s stomach lining eased a bit.

After all that… After  _all_  of that, the kid was tucked up under this largely unfamiliar desk taking a nap. Not in mortal danger, not having some sort of attack, not going into shock.  _Sleeping_. There was something just…crazy about it. Crazy and somehow reassuring, and Jim sank to squat on his heels, just watching the guy sleep for a minute, taking in everything that was  _not_  peril while the harrowing story he’d heard on that videotape faded back in his mind into something less shouty.

Eventually, though, he realized nothing about this situation was conducive to either of them getting the rest they needed, and he was going to have to wake the kid up. “Chief,” Jim whispered and reached forward, gently jostling the nearest knee. “Hey. Come on. Wake up.”

Without warning, the young anthropologist jerked awake, audible gasp and all, hands coming up defensively, body shrinking back into the dubious protection of the desk.

“Whoa, whoa. Hey there, buddy. Relax.” He held up his hands, visible, non-threatening. “It’s just me.”

Sandburg’s wild eyes landed on him first, and the recognition was enough for him to move on to assess his surroundings. At first there was only confusion. Then came the realization of where he was. And with that came the embarrassment. “Oh. Jim. Hi.” His voice was small, still husky from sleep. He’d really been out of it. Both hands came up to rub his face. Or maybe to hide it. “Sorry,” came out muffled behind his hands. “Were you waiting for me? Mm. Man. Sorry. Figured you'd be awhile. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” His hands dropped, and he started to lean forward, ready to scramble out, but Jim stopped him with one index finger to the forehead, and with the kid’s center of balance so far removed, that was all it took to effectively pin him to his spot.

“Easy there, Chief. Everything’s fine.” The forehead under his finger scrunched in confusion, and he removed his hand. “So what’s the deal here; you been playing hide and seek?”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Sandburg said quickly, and probably he just wasn’t awake enough to recognize the gentle teasing for what it was. “I was just dealing with the paperwork I started earlier, only Vera wasn’t here, and everything was so loud and busy out there; I just wanted a little quiet, you know? Just for a minute.”

“I know the feeling,” he commiserated without thinking. “How you doing?”

“Fine,” he answered absently, and blue eyes zeroed in on Jim like lasers. Just from ‘I know the feeling.’ Just from those four words. “Are you okay? Are your senses…” The curly head tilted to one side, eyes narrowing, assessing. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

Jim looked down, noticed for the first time the way he was favoring his left arm, holding it stiffly against his side. Part of the reason he’d thought to handcuff himself to the chopper—aside from the obvious—was that he’d worried about his muscles cramping up or going numb. Even with the vest, a bullet impact took a lot out of you. He consciously relaxed the tight muscles, fighting a wince as the bruises on that side of his chest pulled. “Oh that’s nothing. Just a little sore, that’s all.”

“From the helicopter?”

“Mm,” he shook his head once. “On our way in, Simon and I met with a little resistance. I caught one to the vest. It’s fine. Just bruised.”

Sandburg didn’t seem to hear the last bit. “Caught one what?”

“A bullet.”

A shaky breath came out all at once, and Blair’s eyes went almost impossibly wide. “You got  _shot_?”

“What? No. My  _vest_  got shot.”

The eyes were starting to get a bit panicked, darting from Jim’s arm to his chest, calculating, putting it all together. “They shot you in the chest.” His voice was just above a whisper and like he wasn’t talking to Jim at all. His breathing picked up. “You got shot in the  _chest_. You...”

Concerned at the kid’s sudden upset, Jim kept his tone even. “Hey. Hey, you need to calm down. Sandburg? Blair. You need to calm down right now. Listen to me.”

He was definitely starting to panic now. Tremors were running through him; clammy sweat broke out on his skin. He made an uncomfortable face like he couldn’t understand what was happening to him, but his eyes remained fixated on the left side of Jim’s chest, horrified. “Jim…”

Jim finally leaned forward on his knee, reaching out to take the kid’s face in both hands, guiding the frightened gaze up to meet his eyes. “Chief, look at me.  _I’m fine_. You’re fine, too, but you have to take a deep breath right now,” he ordered.

Blair’s breathing grew more distressed. One hand went to his chest, the other flew to grasp Jim’s wrist. “Jim?” he wheezed painfully, honestly confused and afraid and not understanding. “I can’t… Why can’t I breathe?”

“You  _can_ ,” Jim insisted and let go of his face. “Come on. It’s okay.” He grabbed one of Blair’s forearms, pulling him out from under the desk, letting go immediately when there was a little, strangled yelp of pain, and he wondered briefly about what kind of bruises were forming under that green shirt. “Sorry, kid. Come on. Up.” He levered him up under his arms, ignoring the protest of his own abused body as he lifted up and set Blair up on the desk in one movement. “There you go. You just need to concentrate on taking deep breaths. Just in and out. Try to count to three each time.” His tone of voice was strong and clear. No-nonsense. Just simple, direct, impersonal instruction. He could feel his heart beating in his chest about as fast as Sandburg’s though.

He gripped the back of the kid’s neck and guided his head down, stopping when a shaking, fluttering hand caught onto his t-shirt, gripping the fabric tight, pulling at him desperately, maybe unconsciously. Jim took a step closer, and in doing so, he landed the kid’s forehead smack on the unbruised right side of his chest. He froze for a second. In that second, there were a thousand thoughts, and pretty much all of them centered around this kid practically in his arms, hanging onto his shirt, shaking and wheezing and sweating and basically having an overdue panic attack. This kid who’d nearly been killed  _eight times_  in under eight hours. This kid he hadn’t known even two weeks. This kid whose overdue panic attack was triggered by the fact that  _Jim_  had had a close call.

His mind flashed back to earlier that day. Right at the start of this whole nightmare. When he was stuck outside, and he had to stop Simon from charging in there after Darryl. He’d been able to tell the captain then that his son was okay. Unharmed at least. That Darryl was alive and that he  _needed_  Simon. And that was enough to get Simon thinking straight.

**_“You know in these hostage situations, if you survive the first assault, you stand a pretty good chance,”_**  Simon had said, forcing the optimism, desperate to believe his boy would make it out all right.

Jim had nodded, trying for that same optimism.  ** _“Yeah, that’s right.”_**  His voice hadn’t sounded nearly so sure as he would’ve preferred. Because he hadn’t known about Blair then. Hadn’t been able to hear him. Didn’t know if he was alive or dead. And it had shaken him more than he could understand much less admit.

And then Simon looked at him, with some kind of weird insight and asked,  ** _“Are you okay?”_  **The man whose  _son_  was being held by murderous terrorists asked  _Jim_  if he was all right. What could his face have possibly looked like for Simon to ask him that right then?

**_“Yeah,”_  **he’d said. And ridiculously, he didn’t leave it at that. For some insane reason, he’d answered,  _“ **Sandburg’s in there, too.”**  _And he’d heard the fear in his own voice. As if that could possibly compare to a father’s fear for the life of his only son. As if Jim could even comprehend that kind of fear. But if the fear he had felt those hours of waiting and wondering was even the tiniest taste of what Simon had gone through that day, Jim knew he never would’ve survived that. His respect for his captain had tripled.

He pulled Sandburg forward a bit, shifting his grip from the back of his neck to the back of his head, fingers tangled in the curls, holding him against his chest, his other arm moving to wrap around the shaking shoulders. “It’s okay.” And his voice sounded much less impersonal. “It’s just the reaction. It’s normal. It’s okay, kid. Hey, it’s over now, all right? Easy. Take it easy, Chief. Just breathe. You’re okay. Just breathe now.” He rubbed the kid’s back, and kept talking.

He could feel some of the tension easing as Sandburg tried to listen to what he was saying.

“You did good today. Actually. You know that? Can’t imagine anybody in your shoes doing better than what you did today.” That was just the shocking, honest truth.

There was a shudder, and the curly head shook negatively, probably more in confusion than anything else. But his heart rate continued to slow little by little.

“Yeah, you did. Even impressed Banks, and he’s a hard man to impress. Don’t expect to hear him say it, though. He’d probably die before admitting to anybody he got surprised by some ‘neo-hippie flower child.’ His words not mine.”

There was actually a little bit of a chuckle. A little strangled-sounding, but it was there. “Better than…‘neo-hippie witch doctor…punk,’” was mumbled into Jim’s chest between breaths.

“Who called you that?”

“You did.”

“ _That’s_  right,” he nodded while Sandburg couldn’t see him. “Guess me and Simon dropped out of the same charm school.”

There came a tiny sound that was almost a snort. Made Jim grin. Sandburg sat still up on the desk, leaning forward against Jim, just breathing. Just letting Jim hold him up. Leaning, getting heavier as all the tense, tightly-wound muscles gradually relaxed until Jim had to adjust to compensate for the practically boneless heap formerly known as Sandburg. Except the hand clutching Jim’s shirt. There wasn’t any give in that grip. Jim kept his mouth shut, kept rubbing his back, giving the young man a few much needed gathering moments. It didn’t take long before Blair was breathing deeply again, though each breath was still measured and deliberate. Still that was much better, even if the kid seemed exhausted.

_He oughta be exhausted,_  Jim thought. Prolonged stress, massive adrenaline dump, physical exertion, not to mention just dealing with an insane amount of unexpected, scary crap in the one place he should’ve been safe. Jim just stood there and hung on. It was actually okay with him, oddly enough. Reassuring in its own way to be able to feel the heart beating, catalog each breath.

It was strange, but Sandburg really wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy. Jim had noticed that right off. The kid had no problem turning Jim by the arm or tapping him on the shoulder or the chest or pulling on his sleeve. All those things were about getting Jim’s attention, making himself seen and heard. The kind of measures taken by someone who had something important to say and was used to being ignored. Heck, the kid wasn’t above grabbing Jim by the face if he thought Jim wasn’t listening well enough. But as far as Jim could tell, a hugger Sandburg was not.

Which was fine. Because neither was Jim.

Right after the explosion on the bridge with the Switchman situation, though, Jim had pushed himself to his hands and knees, ears still ringing, eyes watering from the smoke. People were crying and screaming around him, adding to the noise, but at least they were all alive. Jim had crawled up toward the front of the bus, scanning the frightened people he passed for any serious injuries, and mostly focused on finding his way-too-impulsive young partner, presumably to let the kid have it for sneaking onto a bus with a known mad bomber onboard.

He’d met the kid halfway.

**_“Jim!”_**  Sandburg was on his knees, crawling toward Jim the same way, except one hand was clutched to his chest.

Jim could smell the blood before he ever saw it.

**_“Good. You’re okay,”_**  Sandburg had panted, sitting back on his butt, gladly handing over Jim’s sidearm.  ** _“That was awesome, man; I knew you could do it!”_** He pointed an uninjured thumb over his shoulder toward the front of the bus.  ** _“Switchman—Switchma’am?—is out cold. Everybody seems shaken up but mostly okay. We’re good up there.”_**

**_“What happened to your hand?”_ **

**_“Hm? Oh.”_**  He’d winced.  ** _“Caught a little piece of glass when everything went boom. Punishment I think.”_**

**_“For what?”_ **

**_“Man, I just_ ** _hit **a** girl **.”**_

So much had happened so quickly, and all of it so entirely unbelievable, and the kid there bleeding and still making  _that_  goofy expression right at  _that_  moment in the middle of everyone else being loud and afraid, and Jim just reacted. In a moment of pure, unthinking relief, he’d pulled the kid forward and hugged him. Just grateful it was over, they were safe, no one else had been killed. Jim Ellison—black ops Ranger, Major Crimes detective, career  _non-hugger_ —hadn’t even hesitated.

It had surprised him then when the kid had stiffened, pulled back, patted him awkwardly on the shoulder with his good hand and a smile and said something like, **_“Uh. Come on, you big lug. Let’s get these people outta here.”_** He hadn’t been offended, Jim noted. If anything, he’d seemed a little puzzled. Like he just hadn’t expected it or known how to respond.

Well. Kid wasn’t pulling away now. And shoot, if this didn’t qualify as a hug, he didn’t know what did.

“You all right?” he asked quietly.

Sandburg sucked in a breath and nodded tiredly and didn’t move at all when Jim moved some hair out of his eyes with his thumb.  _So this was all harder on you than almost getting blown up, huh? Hm._  But then, at least when they’d nearly gotten blown up, he’d known Jim was there, looking for the bomb. Listening for it. And hadn’t Sandburg sounded so absolutely  _sure_  when he’d said,  _Don’t look. **Listen**._  Kid hadn’t known then that week two with Jim Ellison would make almost blowing up with a city bus look like a stroll on the boardwalk.

He glanced down, and a stack of papers on the desk caught his eye. The dim lighting was nothing to his Sentinel vision, and he easily recognized the paperwork for observer credentials with Blair Sandburg’s name all over them. “So. ‘Taking care of paperwork.’ Does that mean finishing up or…moving to the shred bin?”

“Hm?” Sandburg pulled back then to look up at him, although, whether consciously or unconsciously, he kept his grip on Jim’s shirt. He shook his hair out of his face and glanced down at the papers then back at Jim. “What do you mean shred bin? Why would I…?” For a second, Jim thought the kid would be sick, and that hard-earned calm evaporated. Respiration increased, dilated eyes widened. “Am I out? Who’s pulling me? Is it the captain? ‘Cause you’ll talk to him again, right?” He glanced down and seemed to notice for the first time that he was still hanging onto Jim’s t-shirt, and he let go sure as if he’d been burned. “Or is it you?” he asked softly. “Jim, I know I did some stuff wrong today, but I promise I won’t…”

“Whoa. Hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now you calm down. Right now.”

He would not. “This is  _important_. Don’t you get it? You can’t pull me now. I wasn’t there, and you got  _shot_! You can’t…”

“Hey. Stop. You really don’t listen too well, do you, Junior?” Sandburg looked up at him with an almost heartbreaking desperation, and what the heck  _was_  this? Kid had known him barely two weeks, and how could this flighty, uncoordinated civilian care  _this_  much? “I did  _not_  get shot. I was wearing a vest. I had a vest because I got to  _choose_  to go in. Unlike  _you_.” He poked him in the chest. “You were up here alone, under threat, unprotected, and that was never supposed to happen. That’s on me.”

Sandburg pushed his hand stubbornly away. “It’s not your job to watch out for me. It’s  _my_  job to watch  _your_  back.”

Oh…no. That statement sparked something in him. Felt a lot like anger actually. “All right, listen. I don’t care what your books say,  _Professor_. That doesn’t fly here. I am a cop.  _You_  are a civilian observer. That makes you  _my_  responsibility. Here and now. Not in some ancient textbook, not in some tribal culture. However this used to work, however it works somewhere else, right here where we are, I watch out for you. Hear me?” For once, Sandburg said nothing. Merely fixed a mutinous gaze on the floor, jaw set in rigid defiance. Somehow that picture of young rebelliousness softened Jim a bit, and he took a deep breath in and out. He eased up a little.

“Now look, nobody’s pulling your credentials. Which you actually don’t even  _have_  yet.” He had to hold up a hand to forestall another outburst. “But you will. You will. If that’s what you want. You’ll have ‘em. Frankly, at this point, I don’t even know why you’re still here. That’s what I meant before about you coming in here to shred the paperwork you started. Look, I heard about…what you went through today, all right? I watched the tape.” The blue eyes flicked up to meet his really quick. Jim was finding out the kid responded much better to this kinder tone of voice than his default coldness or distanced sarcasm. Problem was, it took a lot of conscious effort to remember that. “I would’ve figured you’d  _want_  out. I mean, come on, Chief. Is that paper of yours really worth all this? This was  _not_  what you signed up for.”

“Are you kidding me?” Blair shook his head like Jim had just said something unbelievably stupid. “If I had been outside the building, I would’ve just gone in with you anyway. What if you'd spiked? What if you’d zoned? Come on, man. ‘Not what I signed up for’? This is  _exactly_  what I signed up for. Look, no doubt studying you is gonna be aces for my career. Which is stellar. But that’s just icing, man. You’re the  _Sentinel_  of  _my_   _city_ , and you need somebody to watch your back. Whether you like it or not, right now, that’s me. And sorry if that's kind of disappointing because I know I'll never be the guy with the machine guns and the kevlar and the action hero one-liners. And I don't want to be. But I am the guy who's read all the right books, and regardless of what that does to your manly-man pride,  _that's_  what you need to stay alive right now. I may not know cop stuff, but I know  _you_ —at least the Sentinel side of you—better than anyone else. So if you’re planning on getting me to walk, you’re gonna have to put together something a lot scarier than Blondie McGunhappy back there.”

He just sat there, hands in his lap, looking determined. Long hair and earth tones and smelling like cold sweat and candle wax. What was it about him that made Jim believe him when he said stuff like that? He even knew the guy was something of a habitual liar. So what was this quiet, invisible  _something_  that demanded Jim’s trust? The kind of trust Jim didn’t grant  _anyone_ , so why did it suddenly seem so inevitable that he would hand it over to this small, silly, incomprehensible young person he’d known for two weeks?

The dark blue eyes stared straight into his own. Not fearless. Just determined. Just brave.  _This kid is made of steel._  And he never would’ve thought so.

_What exactly did I get into here?_  he thought.  _What exactly did **you** get into?_ Because yes, Sandburg knew a ton about Sentinels that Jim didn’t know, but the kid could not have known that his life would be  _this_. That it would involve guns and danger and death. How could he be okay with this? How could he sit there so resolute and contained and unreasonably sure?  _What am I even supposed to do with you?_

_Keep him safe._  The obvious answer came quietly and hardly sounded like his own voice. It was that same internal, commanding  _something_  that had made it somehow okay, somehow necessary, to hug and to reassure and to protect.

Jim bowed his head and sighed heavily, closing his eyes. When he looked up again, there was Sandburg, staring right at him. He sighed again, just to buy another moment, and then he set his jaw, moving forward into Sandburg’s personal space, hands landing on the desktop on either side of the kid. Because if he had any hope of keeping this crazy man safe for any length of time, he had to drive this point home now. Sandburg leaned back a bit, but held the gaze inches from his own, unintimidated or pretending well.

“All right, Sandburg. I’m going to tell you how this is gonna go. You think you got all this Sentinel stuff figured out, fine. Whatever. You can follow me and do what you do. That’s great. That's valuable. But if you ever,  _ever_  run off and do something crazy--and I'm not talking about today. I'm talking about if you knowingly put yourself in danger because you think you’re answering some weird Sentinel-related imperative or something, I will pull your clearance myself, and you’re gone. Just like that. Out. You hear me? When we’re out on the street, you do what I tell you when I tell you  _every time_. None of this hero crap, none of this  _protecting_   _me_  nonsense. Your  _only_  job is helping me keep my senses under control so that I can do  _my_  job. If you go out there and get yourself killed, you’re useless to me.” And more importantly, much more importantly,  _Don’t you dare get killed._

Blair blinked and shrugged a shoulder. “Wasn’t planning on getting killed.” Simply put.

“Good. Now tell me you understand what I’m saying to you.”

“I understand what you’re saying. Hey, man, a hero is one thing I’ve never been accused of being. More of a hide-and-cower kinda guy.” He said it like he believed it, too, and that didn’t make any sense or even mesh with anything he'd just said himself. How the heck does a guy go from ultra-confident to inconsequential in ten seconds or less?

“Fine. Outstanding. Glad we got that cleared up.” Too tired to be anything but mollified, Jim pushed off the desk and gave the guy a little breathing room. He waited a beat and turned to back up into the desk, reaching behind and hopping up to sit, mumbling “Ouch,” as bruises and worn-out muscles protested. He settled himself in beside his odd, unexpected partner, and the two sat quietly in the dark office for a moment.

“Does it hurt a lot?” Blair asked eventually, and his tone was conversational but his voice was quiet.

Jim glanced at him, almost amused, and he had to keep it out of his voice. “Just the usual amount.” Which was true. He was  _not_  looking forward to tomorrow.

“I can make a salve for that,” Sandburg offered. “All natural stuff. It’ll take the edge off. Just don’t ask me what’s in it.”

“Because you think it’ll gross me out?”

“Psh. Because I think you’re a  _cop_.”

The implication took just a second to sink in.  _He can’t be serious…_ Jim looked over in disbelief just in time to catch the wicked little smile. He shook his head. “Funny. Those are the kind of jokes you can’t make inside a  _police station_ , genius.”

The little smile grew. And this was a guy that absolutely knew how to play down to people’s expectations. And apparently did so on occasion solely for his own amusement. “Fine. No illegal substances jokes. I’ll try to remember that. Seriously, though. It’ll work at least as well as that over-the-counter stuff. And won’t smell nearly so bad. At least…not after it sets.”

“I think I’ll be okay. Thanks, though.”

Beside him, Blair shrugged in easy acceptance of that and was quiet for a few moments, leaning forward a bit, gripping the edge of the desk and swinging his legs slightly as he studied the floor. He huffed a quiet sigh. “Joel Taggart got shot today. In the leg. Seemed like he was in a lot of pain.”

The subject change surprised Jim. But he got the feeling it shouldn’t have. “I know. He’s a tough guy, though. Helped us take down one of the gunmen who was gonna kill the hostages, even with his leg messed up. The man’s a fighter. He’ll be okay.”

Blair nodded. “I owe him a lot. I know I don’t know him well, but do you think…do you think it would be weird if I went and saw him? Just brought him something and said thank you real quick?”

“I don’t think that’d be weird at all. I’ll go with you if you want,” he found himself offering, and the idea would never have occurred to him. It really would never have occurred to him, and it only just then occurred to him that maybe that should bother him.

“Really?” Hesitant relief and gratitude.

“Sure.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Thanks.” He was quiet again, and Jim could feel him thinking. He could literally feel it in the tenseness running through his arm and see it in the furrowed brow, the bottom lip caught between his teeth. “Some other people got shot today. And they died.”

Jim felt his jaw tighten. “I know.” It ate at him. There was nothing to say to make that better. Nothing to do to fix it. It just was. And even if it was unacceptable, there was nothing to do but keep going.

“It bugs me you got shot,” Sandburg admitted. Like it honestly confused him. “A lot.”

It was on the tip of Jim’s tongue to tell him again,  _I didn’t get **shot**! _ But he only shook his head. “I gathered that. The, ah, panic attack was a dead giveaway.”

Sandburg glanced over at him, one incredulous eyebrow raised. “What, that thing earlier? Man, that wasn’t a  _panic_  attack.”

“Oh no?” Oh, please.

“No way. Was probably a blood sugar thing. I didn’t get lunch today, you know. Haven't had anything since my bagel this morning. And I cut my finger slicing it, you may recall, so...I'm probably anemic, too.”

“Ah. I see. Well, good. Let me tell you something completely unrelated then.” He paused to take a breath and figure out whether he wanted to say what he wanted to say. Really though, even if he didn’t want Sandburg thinking of himself as a hero, he didn’t want him thinking himself a coward either. “If it wasn’t for you, today could’ve been a whole lot worse for me.”

The one incredulous eyebrow found its mate. “What? How? I wasn’t even there.”

“No. You were upstairs, on the inside. Taking out Kincaid’s guys like some kinda pro.”

“Uh, largely by  _accident_ …”

Jim waved a hand to shut him up. “You got them to focus on you. Accidently or not. And if they hadn’t been focused on finding  _you_  on the upper levels, Simon and I might’ve had a whole lot more to contend with than one man with a gun. We might not ever have gotten in the door. So. Whether you meant to or not, you had my back today. Thanks.”

The kid was leaned sideways a little bit, away from him, studying him with a small, suspicious quirk to his lips. “You’re reaching.”

Jim just shrugged. “Doesn’t seem that way to me,” he said with quiet honesty. Because honestly, it still blew him away. He looked over and said shortly, “And don’t let this feed the fire that is your whole ‘protect the Sentinel’ thing.” He even did finger quotes. “If you do, I’ll break your knees.”

This time the smile was soft and bright and directed at the floor. “Got it.” If there was one thing more unbearable than a loud, know-it-all Sandburg, it was a quiet, grateful, shy Sandburg.

“So,” Jim harrumphed. “Low blood sugar?”

“Yep.” That was his story, and apparently he was sticking to it.

“Would’ve thought that pack of M&Ms would take care of that.”

“Oh, man.”  _There_  was the loudness and the face-making. “You  _did_  see the tape. I still have ‘em. They’re in my coat pocket.” He pointed to the corner and his abandoned coat. “Want one?”

“How about we go get dinner instead? My treat.”

“That sounds a thousand percent better,” he agreed cheerfully. “And you can tell me everything that happened when you and Captain Banks went in. I need the data for my research. Obviously.”

“Obviously. You know you probably heard about most of it already.”

“Doesn’t matter. I want to hear about it from you. All of it. You should’ve told me you’d been shot like the second we got back to the roof. What if it had affected your touch sensitivity? I wouldn’t have known how to help,” he said sternly. Then added, “Jerk.”

“All right, fine. Whatever.”

But the kid seemed to have already forgiven him. “I’m so hungry, though. There’s this new ambiguous-fusion type restaurant by the water. I’ve heard it’s  _terrible_ , but you can’t believe everything you hear, right? Also, apparently there are rumors that it’s a front for a money laundering operation. We could take them down.”

_You’re not gonna let my life be easy, are you,_  he mused at the earnest face.  _Not even for five minutes._ “Yeah…that sounds a little too adventurous on every level for tonight."

"Lucky them," He said with all kinds of sly bravado. "Because according to you, I'm awesome and I fight bad guys."

And now he was bragging.  _Now_  he was bragging.  "What even  _are_  you? No. Shut up. How about pizza?”

“Not on a Wednesday,” Sandburg vetoed with zero further explanation. As if in his world it required none. “There’s a stand over on Fifth that does great couscous.”

“Mm, no. Chinese?” he countered.

And with the delighted smile that should accompany all great compromises, “Perfect.”

Jim hopped off the desk, reaching over to grab Sandburg’s hand and pull him down, careful not to touch that place on his arm that had hurt him earlier. “Hey, what’s the deal with your arm?” he asked casually. “Kincaid’s guys do that?” They’d hit him. And Jim wasn’t sure anymore whether he’d agree with Sandburg’s definition of “a little bit.”

Sandburg had to steady himself on his feet for a second before saying like it really wasn’t any big deal at all, “Oh, no, man. Nah, it was stupid; I just banged it when I went out a window. See there was this platform… Oh, you heard me tell it already. Anyway, it was a ways down, and me and heights sort of have this understanding where…I understand that I hate them.” An embarrassed chuckle. “So when I had to jump, I kept my eyes closed, mostly involuntarily, which…makes it harder to see, which…makes it harder to land without banging your arm on the railing.”

Kid had a thing about heights. Kid had a thing about heights and still went out a window to land on a suspended window washer’s platform x number of stories above ground. If Jim shook his head again, he’d get dizzy. “You jumped out a window with your eyes closed,” he said flatly.

“It was just straight down. I trusted that gravity knew the way.”

Jim shook his head anyway. “You’re an idiot.” A brilliant, grinning, surprising, miraculous idiot.

“Idiots are like Sentinels, man,” Sandburg said glibly. “Every village needs one.”

Turning to mostly hide his wide smile, he grabbed Sandburg’s coat off the floor. Fingered a tear high on the left shoulder. That felt like… Couldn't be.

“That’s from a bullet,” Sandburg supplied helpfully as he took the coat from him, and Jim could only blink because there was the solid, unavoidable evidence that it really had been  _that close_. “Don’t worry. Just needs a patch.” And with downright cheerfulness, “I almost died a bunch of times today.” That was true. And maybe the cheerfulness was something Blair put on while he tried to sort out how he really felt about all that. But it was strange to Jim that the kid could say that and sound perfectly fine, but the idea of  _Jim_  getting shot sent him spiraling. 

“It was eight by my count,” he said quietly. He didn’t think he’d ever forget that.  _Heck of a first day._

“Sounds about right. And it totally sucked. Every time.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Hey, if I were a cat, I’d only have one life left!”

It was so unfunny, and yet there was something in that ridiculous expression that had Jim having to chew down a grin. Exasperated, he put an arm around the kid’s shoulders and turned him toward the door. “Good thing you’re not a cat, partner. So how many lives  _do_  Sentinel partners get?”

“Dozens,” he said with finality and without hesitation.

“Oh? That’s in the research, huh?”

“Of course. What, you think I make this stuff up as I go?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Thought never crossed my mind, Chief.”


End file.
